


A Forest By Winter

by mneiai



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter
Genre: Jealousy, Multi, Serial Killer, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mneiai/pseuds/mneiai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was something akin to the perfect murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Forest By Winter

He hasn't stumbled in the forest in years, not since junior high camping trips and lanky limbs. Any awkwardness had fled when he was nineteen, at the tip of a needle. Despite that, he feels as though he _should_ be stumbling, running into branches, tripping over obscured rocks. The fear pounding in his heart and the loss he can taste in the back of his throat tell him so. A human man would be bloody, bruised, and all but crawling at this point, after five miles of running and two more to go.

Richard didn't need a trail to follow, which was good, because He hadn't left one. He didn't need splatters of blood, the stench of terror, not even boot prints in the dead leaves. As soon as he got to the door of Anita's apartment, he knew. Forcing it open was just to be _sure_, to force his subconscious to acknowledge what was happening.

How many women had he led, willfully, happily, to these woods? To the grove he had found and enjoyed years ago? To the clutter of trees that was the distance of a frantic, desperate twenty minute run?

He couldn't help it--he was weak, desperate to be back in His good graces, even if he never had to leave in the first place. The first time was a fortunate accident: Richard had known Gabriel would kill her eventually; she'd had too much of Richard for too long a time for Him to allow her to live.

He would have considered even a second to be too long. At first, He had done it quietly, had waited until Richard was within hours of crawling back. He'd expertly covered his tracks, so no cop would ever make a connection, would never notice anything suspicious about an animal attack, a car crash, a random mugging. It was just taking advantage of the fact that Richard was secretive, and that he was attracted to women who were unlikely to brag to everyone about their newest lover.

Anita had changed it all, broken a pattern four years old that was ingrained in both of them. It made Richard's skin crawl whenever he thought of it, and he _wanted_ it to stop. He was almost too scared to imagine what He had been feeling, as days turned into weeks turned into months, and still Richard hadn't asked Anita to go on that fateful hiking trip, on that land owned by Him (just an anonymous friend, he'd tell the women, hoping they didn't catch the lie it physically hurt to speak).

Setting his pack down in the wide circle of rocks, he told her to sit back and rest. He said he'd go and collect some firewood. And he went beyond the tree line, out of her line of sight, and waited to hear the snapping of twigs and the rustling of leaves that would be loud enough for plebian human ears to pick up. And then, finally, the screaming.

He didn't bother following the chase, he just began walking towards their trees, knowing He would draw out the chase for the pure fun of it, all the while herding her to where Richard waited, lounging against a tree older than he can truly comprehend, groin tight, nose flaring with the approaching scent of pure _fear_.

The scent of Anita's fear lacked a certain sweetness, as it hit him just outside the rough rectangular area that their trees rested within. There was something about it that simply wasn't arousing. If he hadn't been so well-trained, if there weren't blood in the air to tease his beast, he would've said it was sickening.

The sight of her lying out on a stone slab, blood gurgling from her mouth and flowing from more wounds than he could count, made him dizzy with worry. But the sight of Him crouching next to her, sharp eyes watching Richard as he approached, brought a gasp, barely suppressed, to his lips. It was hard to keep telling himself that he didn't love Him anymore.

There had been blood on her walls and on her carpet, but no scent of gunpowder--she hadn't gotten a shot out, probably hadn't even pulled the gun as He caught her and tortured her. She would have been in too much pain to put up a real struggle within minutes, and his beast couldn't help but feel disdain at that. Too weak to struggle by the time He dragged her out of the building.

Now He watched Richard with passion, with that obsessive not-love (yet love all the same,) that Richard couldn't pretend he didn't miss. Anita stared at him with a scream she couldn't voice, begging him to help her, to fight Him off and carry her to safety. It was traumatic; maybe more so to Richard than to Anita herself.

"Two choices," He finally said, his clawed hand running through Anita's blood-crusted hair. "You decide her fate--either you put her out of her human misery, or she lives...as one of my leopards."

His eyes smile gleefully, telling Richard everything his purring voice hadn't: that Anita would end up whoring to the lowliest of people, degraded beyond anything she could imagine. Though Richard had witnessed it, he knew how much it would hurt her. And He would never let her rest or gain recovery; she'd work until a careless client killed her. She'd hate herself all the while, not just for what she was doing, but for what she had _become_. Richard still remembered the haunting pain of her lying in his arms and dying from lamia venom, telling him that she'd rather have a horrific end than become a lycanthrope.

Part of Richard could admit that there was another reason he didn't want her to change, one far more selfish than he'd ever say aloud. He was worried she'd be a _good_ wereleopard, be dangerous enough, wild enough, that Gabriel could fall for her, just as Richard had for her human self. Richard wasn't good at jealousy, had never been able to sit back and allow someone else to have the spotlight in the eyes of those he loved.

He dropped to his knees only a few feet away, moving with that lycanthropic grace that he always admired when he was the one watching it. He watched, and then felt his hand reach out and close at her throat. She made a whining noise, high-pitched and painful, but his eyes left hers and settled on Him, his excitement beautiful to behold. There was a crackling sort of noise as he moved to sit down, and He pounced. Richard was forced onto his back, onto the cold, hard ground, and couldn't have stopped anything from that point.

Richard wasn't a murderer; instead, he was merely a voyeur to His tendencies. And it wasn't cannibalism, because they _weren't_ human, no matter how much he pretended. If his beast wanted it, then it was natural to be smeared in her blood, taken in violent thrusts, crying and begging for more.

She'd never be found; none of them would be, their bones hanging macabre decorations in the trees. High enough up than a normal hiker, if allowed on the private property, could possibly make out and identify. It was something akin to the perfect murder.


End file.
